Nay, She is no sepulchre in Whose bed
I shall, at length, die quietly: Instead,
with verdant eyes full, rife, replete with Life,
I’ll lay to rest this back I’ve bruised and bled
in worship of—in Her Name, my Love, Light,
all Alchemy for purity in blight.
‘Woe! burst thy cage asunder! flee! take flight!
from this prison of perfidious pride
whose walls are Time, whose gates are Birth & Death.
My vast, pastoral Paradise is thine
if thou might only sacrifice all breath,
all blood for Me.’ This mortal frame I shed
for Thee, Great Mother. Hear that I, bereft
of Thee, have tried; though listen as I, cleft
between the Earth and Heavens, hesitate
to burn away these veils and, ahead,
wherein Thou art, perceive, with pore and vein,
my Beloved, the Essence, that Black Thread
Who ties together halted waterways
with steep-faced, rising mountain-tops aflame,
kindled by Thee, O! Glory of the grave,
Whose fresh palms kept and cradled my remains
until, in sprouts of gold, I struck insight,
and, gaping, bright with shame, and gasping praise,
I realized that Thou dost yet survive
in places desolated, drained, deprived
of love or light, filled with the hollow cries
of those languishing—lost, destroyed by lies—
in the abyss of mortifying pain:
For here, as well, Thou dwelleth; yea, for I,
though dying, lost, my Spirit nearly slain,
was brought to bloom, resolved by Thee again.
Thus do I long from body to away
into the Realm of Beauty in Thy reign;
to gaze in rapture, chant aloud what’s said
upon Thy tablets, and, lost in Thy Ways,
with Soul unbridled, at long last be led
into Thy garden, lain upon Thy bed.
11/28/2015
Durban